Arroyo to seal oil exploration venture in E. Guinea

Inquirer
Last updated 02:09am (Mla time) 06/27/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Following the move by Western and Asian investors to exploit newly discovered oil reserves in West Africa, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Tuesday flew to Equatorial Guinea in the hope of sealing a joint venture exploration deal with the oil-rich nation.

 

Ms Arroyo left Singapore on a chartered Philippine Airlines flight and was scheduled to arrive later Tuesday in Equatorial Guinea’s capital Malabo for a 12-hour visit. She returns to Manila on Wednesday.

 

Ms Arroyo arrived in Singapore on Saturday to attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia and make her second state visit to the city-state.

 

While in Equatorial Guinea, Ms Arroyo is scheduled to address the People’s Republic Chamber, followed by a meeting with her counterpart, President Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo.

 

The two leaders are scheduled to witness the signing of an accord for further bilateral cooperation.

 

A Palace statement said Manila’s friendship with Malabo grew after the state visit to the Philippines of President Mbasogo in May 2006.

 

“We shall engage Equatorial Guinea bilaterally and multilaterally through the mutual support of each other’s initiatives in the international community. Our countries have a shared agenda of defeating poverty through the New Asia-Africa Strategic Partnership and the United Nations,” the statement quoted Ms Arroyo as saying.

 

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Ms Arroyo’s trip to the West African nation was also crucial to forging a possible joint venture between Philippine National Oil Co.-Energy Development Corp. and its Equatorial Guinea counterpart.

 

“This is very significant considering that Equatorial Guinea is a major producer of oil, even bigger than Brunei as far as oil production is concerned,” Bunye said.

 

Bunye said Equatorial Guinea had estimated offshore oil reserves of 1.28 billion barrels. According to him, the African nation lacked technical expertise in offshore drilling which the Philippines could provide.

 

The press secretary did not provide further details on the proposed joint venture.

 

Ms Arroyo is also expected to tour the Campo Alba Oil Field Complex and meet with the 2,500 overseas Filipino workers there.

 

“This will be a good occasion to visit them and ensure that they are treated well by their employers,” she said in her departure statement.

 

Ms Arroyo will be the first Philippine leader to visit the former Spanish colony that has become one of Africa’s oil producers that include Nigeria, the world’s sixth largest exporter, Angola and Gabon.

 

A British oil and gas company last week announced that it had discovered up to 600 million barrels of oil on the West Cape Three Points block off Ghana’s coast in West Africa.

 

In nearby Benin, drilling is soon to begin in the 470-kilometer coastal sedimentary basin that runs from Ghana to Nigeria.

 

European, American, Australian, Russian and Chinese investors have shown keen interest in the development of the oil industry in West Africa despite the fact the region represents less than a third of the total African production. Africa accounts for less than 12 percent of world production, far behind the Middle East, Russia and Brazil.

 

Despite the oil riches, an overwhelmingly majority of their people live in dire poverty and earn less than a dollar a day. Critics say the oil riches are enjoyed only by those in power and their associates. With reports from Michael Lim Ubac, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

Passenger leaves sacks of explosives materials in taxi cab

By Nancy C. Carvajal
Inquirer
Last updated 08:31am (Mla time) 06/27/2007

NINE sacks of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient used in making explosives, were left behind in a taxi cab by a man last Monday in Navotas City.

 

City police chief, Supt. Eric Reyes, said a police patrol car happened to pass by the taxi, driven by Alfredo Loreto, 30, a resident of Barangay Acacia, Malabon City, at around 4 p.m. on Governor Pascual.

 

When he spotted the police vehicle, the lone passenger, an unidentified man, got out of the vehicle and ran away, leaving the nine sacks of ammonium nitrate behind.

 

Reyes said the driver told the police that the man whom he called “Larry” flagged him down in Malabon City and asked that he be brought to Sipac, Navotas City.

 

The driver added that he did not know that the sacks contained ammonium nitrate. Larry reportedly told him that the sacks were full of fish food.

 

The police later released the driver after being convinced that he did not have anything to do with the sacks of explosive materials.

 

According to Reyes, they were now monitoring certain areas to determine if there were warehouses for ammonium nitrate in the city.

 

The ingredient is one of the precursors in the manufacture of dynamites also used in illegal fishing. Navotas hosts one of the biggest fish ports in the country and is a major supplier of fish in Luzon.

10 QC cops charged for failing to take witness stand

By Margaux Ortiz
Inquirer
Last updated 08:31am (Mla time) 06/27/2007

TEN MORE policemen were charged by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) for repeatedly ignoring their court duties, leading to the dismissal of drug cases and the release of suspected illegal drugs peddlers.

 

Of the 10, PO2 Victor Aquino, PO3 Zaldy Asama, PO3 Rene Saul, PO2 Reynaldo Labon, and PO1 Estelito Mortega had been charged earlier this month by the PDEA for violations of Sections 91 and 92 of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

 

The PDEA also filed the same charges against SPO2 Belto Coritara, PO2 Orlando Dionisio, PO1 Arnold Penalosa, PO1 Frederick Saet, and PO3 Cleto Montegrejo.

 

All of the accused are assigned at the Quezon City Police District in Camp Karingal.

 

In his complaint filed in the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office on Monday afternoon, lawyer Joey Quiriones, chief of the PDEA prosecution and case monitoring division, said the agency established a National Drug Case Monitoring System that supervises the status of drug cases and the participation of government personnel involved.

 

“Since the establishment of the system, we have been receiving copies of decisions from various courts and prosecution offices,” Quiriones said.

 

“Upon studying the documents, the PDEA found out that most of the cases were dismissed due to the nonappearances of police witnesses,” he added.

 

Quiriones said the accused police officers were involved in the arrest of drug suspects in Quezon City. The suspects were subsequently charged in the city’s regional trial courts. The PDEA lawyer explained that being poseur buyers and apprehending officers during the buy-bust operations, the presence and testimonies of the policemen were material and essential for the successful prosecution of the accused.

 

The police officers, however, failed to appear during the scheduled hearings of their respective cases, prompting the judge to ask them to explain why they should not be cited for contempt.

 

The judges assigned eventually issued orders dismissing the cases against the drug suspects “by reason of the repeated absence of the prosecution’s witnesses therein.”

 

“The dismissal caused by the police witnesses’ nonappearance was fatal to the prosecution’s cause and a serious blow to the government’s drive to eradicate and punish to the fullest extent violators of the dangerous drugs law,” Quiriones said.

Power outage in North Metro fouls up traffic, railway ops

Power outage in North Metro fouls up traffic, railway ops
By Riza T. Olchondra, Abigail L. Ho
Inquirer
Last updated 08:31am (Mla time) 06/27/2007

SEVERAL areas in Metro Manila and in nearby provinces experienced power outages Tuesday when lightning struck the 230-kilovolt (kV) San Jose-Balintawak line of the National Transmission Corp., cutting the power supply from four Luzon generation facilities.

 

In a statement, Transco said the tripping of the San Jose-Balintawak line also caused the Hermosa-Mexico and Cabanatuan-Mexico lines to trip.

 

The tripping of the lines later affected the power supply generated by the Ilijan gas-fired, Calaca coal-fired, Malaya thermal and Limay combined-cycle power plants operated by the National Power Corp.

 

Brownouts were felt at around 2 p.m. in parts of Cavite, Los Baños and Biñan in Laguna, Bulacan and Tayabas, Quezon.

 

Customers of the Manila Electric Co. in the northern part of Metro Manila, including Quezon City, Navotas, Caloocan, Malabon and Valenzuela were also affected.

 

Transco was able to restore power to the San Jose-Balintawak, Hermosa-Mexico and Cabanatuan-Mexico lines at around 3:30 p.m.

 

Some 45,000 commuters of the Light Rail Transit Lines 1 and 2 and Metro Rail Transit were stranded for over an hour as the trains stopped operating due to outage.

 

LRT Authority public relations officer Jinky Jorgio said in a text message that Line 1, which runs from Monumento to Baclaran and vice versa, resumed normal operations at around 2:30 p.m. Line 2 ( from Recto to Santolan), on the other hand, started operating at around 3 p.m.

 

The MRT, meanwhile, was not as badly affected. Operations from the North Avenue station to Shaw Boulevard were stalled for a full hour. But operations from Shaw to Taft Avenue were unaffected throughout the power outage.

 

MRT general manager Roberto Lastimoso said it was fortunate that the disruption of operations did not occur during rush hour.

 

The LRT Line 1 ferries 30,000 to 35,000 passengers hourly at peak hours compared to 10,000 to 15,000 passengers for Line 2 and 40,000 passengers for the MRT.

Manila archdiocese explains dress code for churchgoers

By Jerome Aning
Inquirer
Last updated 09:42pm (Mla time) 06/26/2007

MANILA — The “dress code” issued by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila was a mere “guideline” and “violators” will not be instantly ejected from church premises.

 

The archdiocese’s social communications director, Peachy Yamsuan, said the guidelines were issued so that the Catholic faithful — from the parish priest down to the ordinary parishioner – would be aware of the appropriate clothes for Mass and other church services.

 

“Asking those not dressed properly to step out of the Church would be un-Christian; on the other hand, making minute specifications such as how long a shirt or pair of pants should measure so as not to be considered indecent would be Pharisaic,” Yamsuan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a phone interview.

 

There would not be an “over-strict monitoring” of compliance with the proper attire as done in services in other religions, she added. “Violators” would not be sternly ordered to comply “under the pain of committing mortal sin,” she added.

 

She said the issuance of the guidelines by the Archdiocese’s Ministry for Liturgical Affairs has so far been well-received by both clergy and lay people. The proposal for a dress code actually came from church-goers themselves, she added.

 

Yamsuan said in some cases, the enforcement of the guidelines would be up to the parish priest and lay leaders. The guidelines should not be interpreted as a upholding conservatism in the manner of dressing, she added.

 

She said Fr. Godwin Tatlonghari, assistant minister for liturgical affairs, clarified to her that church laws did not specify the correct attire for a church-goers but reminded the faithful to be garbed in reverence, propriety and decency as befitting a liturgical celebration.

 

Yamsuan explained that some priests would refuse to give communion to improperly attired church-goer. But in churches where services are often crowded, the priest would hardly notice those improperly attired, she said.

 

In this case, Yamsuan said the reminder about the right attire should come from ushers, collectors, lectors and members and leaders of liturgical and religious lay groups participating in the service.

 

A woman wearing a spaghetti dress, a dress showing too much of her cleavage or any tight-fitting dress, should be given a warning to dress properly next time, Yamsuan said.

 

“When she goes up to receive holy communion, she may be given a shawl to cover herself by anybody in charge of the liturgical service or any concerned parishioner,” she added.

 

Yamsuan said the priest’s or the church-goers’ sentiments on the dress guidelines could be measured in chapels or churches inside subdivisions where some of the faithful would attend services wearing shorts and jogging pants and other church goers seeing them would not mind their attire.

 

The archdiocese covers the Manila, Mandaluyong, Pasay, Makati and San Juan.

 

Among those listed by the MLA as proper attire for going to mass were collared shirts or T-shirts, jeans or slacks, polo or long-sleeved shirts for men, and collared, long-sleeved blouses, dresses and long gowns for women. Corporate attire or office or school uniforms were also described as acceptable for church wear.

 

Clothes prohibited inside the church are caps, jerseys or undershirts and shorts for men, and spaghetti-strap or tank tops and other sleeveless blouses, plunging necklines and skimpy shorts and skirts for women.

 

Yamsuan said more emphasis should be placed on what should not be worn because even articles of clothing mentioned in the list could still be considered improper if for example, they are too tight, translucent or too brightly colored.

Execs get message Fr. Bossi is alive

InquirerLast updated 00:31am (Mla time) 06/27/2007

ZAMBOANGA CITY–The abductors of Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi have sent a text message to a government emissary that their captive is alive, a Marine general said Tuesday.

 

But Brig. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino, chair of the government’s Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (Ahjag), said they were still trying to get more information.

 

Dolorfino, who heads non-military efforts to free the 57-year-old Bossi, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that a Maranao emissary from Lanao had phoned him twice Tuesday.

 

He said the emissary, who also helped in negotiations in kidnappings in the past, told him that the kidnappers sent a text message indicating that the priest is alive.

 

“We talked. He has direct contacts with the kidnappers. The kidnappers’ word to him is implied. The priest is still alive,” Dolorfino said by phone.

 

He said no ransom demand was discussed during their talk but the contact asked for money to buy medicines for Bossi.

 

Bossi, who suffers from hypertension, was snatched on his way to celebrate Mass in Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay on June 10.

 

His captors have reportedly brought him to Lanao del Norte, particularly the town of Sultan Naga Dimaporo.

 

Government forces and Moro rebels have been deployed to the area to pressure the kidnappers into releasing their captive.

 

Dolorfino said he and the emissary “have close coordination” and they have been in contact since June 22.

 

“Hopefully we could establish direct contact with the kidnappers. We will know all about Bossi’s condition if we can establish contact with them,” Dolorfino said.

 

The Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), Bossi’s religious order, said it has not received “proof of life” yet.

 

Fr. Gianni Battista Sandalo, PIME superior in the Philippines, also expressed surprise at Dolorfino’s statement about the contact with the kidnappers.

 

He said he was not aware of it.

 

“Up to now, nobody has ever contacted us, and nobody came forward to share information on the whereabouts of Fr. Giancarlo,” he said.

 

Sandalo said the absence of any form of communication or contact has been an agony, not just for the PIME community here, but for other people close to Bossi as well.

 

“We are trying to be patient waiting for anything,” he said.

 

Sandalo also said that while the PIME community continues to wait for developments, some people in Zamboanga Sibugay have organized themselves in an effort to help free the abducted priest. Julie Alipala and Jeoffrey Maitem, Inquirer Mindanao

Silay City family helps children go to school

By Carla Gomez
Inquirer
Last updated 01:42am (Mla time) 06/23/2007

SILAY CITY—A school in Silay City, Negros Occidental is helping children of farm workers break free from the cycle of poverty and some are now working as engineers and nurses in foreign countries.

 

This is because a family that could have otherwise just sat back and enjoyed the profits of their vast sugar lands chose to make a difference for others.

 

In 1964, their matriarch Marietta Ledesma started the St. Francis of Assisi School in Hacienda Tinihaban, Silay City, because she wanted to provide farm children with education better than what was being provided in public schools.

 

“My grandmother believed that given quality Christian education for free, children of farm workers would not have to be forever stuck to working on the farm, they could develop their full potential,” her granddaughter Carmela “Micmic” Abello Golez, 37, said.

 

When their grandmother died in 1979, their grandfather, Edgardo Ledesma, continued the school’s tradition of free education until he died in 1994, Golez said. After his death, however, “the vision sort of got lost,” for a period of seven years, said Carmela’s brother, Roberto “Robin” Abello Jr., 36.

 

Continuing the vision

 

Robin said he and Micmic belong to the third generation of their family and they wanted to bring back the tradition of free education at the school their grandmother started.

 

“My grandmother wanted to give children of farm workers a chance for a better life outside of the farm,” Micmic said, “because for a lot of them their parents and their grandparents before them worked on the farm.”

 

“We want them to know that there’s life beyond the farm, that they can pursue a different career,” she said.

 

But as the school expanded by accepting children outside of the Ledesma farm, funding from Hacienda Tinihaban was no longer enough to keep up with the free education program.

 

“My grandfather, when he died, left money for the school but it was not enough for the scholarships for the poor,” Robin said.

 

Micmic said they started charging a minimal fee for students who were not from sugar farms and for those who could afford the fees, but the children from the farms still received free education.

 

Because of the funding shortage, Micmic said they decided to establish the Tapulanga Foundation Inc. in 2001.

 

Today, the foundation mainly provides scholarships for students of St. Francis of Assisi School who not only come from Hacienda Tinihaban but from other parts of Silay City and the adjoining Talisay City and EB Magalona town.

 

Micmic said St. Francis now has 370 students in pre-school, grade school and high school.

 

The school is supervised by the University of St. La Salle based in Bacolod City, which helps with curriculum development.

 

The high school department, which opened only last year, has classrooms with large windows to let in maximum light and the breeze from a nearby creek.

 

St. Francis of Assisi School not only educates its students inside the classrooms, it also provides many other opportunities for the children to go on field trips, watch movies, concerts and plays, learn how to use computers, be exposed to theater arts, have swimming lessons, annual recollections and more.

 

Tapulanga Foundation was founded “with the vision to share God’s gifts and good news,” Robin stressed.

 

Micmic is its executive director while Robin is president.

 

Micmic holds a degree in economics from the University of the Philippines at Los Baños.

 

Robin has an undergraduate degree in computer science, a master’s degree in software engineering from the Carnegie Mellon University in Maryland, and is married to Kate, an obstetrician-gynecologist.

 

Robin and his wife live in the United States but send a lot of their earnings back to the Philippines to help run the school and also raise funds for more scholarships for the poor.

 

How to help

 

Robin said those who wish to help them in their mission may get more information at the Tapulanga Foundation’s website www.tapulanga.org. Information at the website states that $150 can pay for a year of high school education and $125 for an elementary school scholarship.

 

Tapulanga Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization that also provides health care and micro-credit opportunities, Micmic said.

 

She said their cousin is a pediatrician so all their students get free annual medical checkups including deworming and immunization. When Robin’s wife, Kate, visits, the mothers also get free checkups, she added.

 

Micmic said the foundation also provides free eye checkups and glasses because they noticed that some of the students did badly in school because they could not see.

 

To help farm workers increase their livelihood so that they will hopefully be able to send their children to college, Tapulanga started a micro-credit fund in 2005 to provide opportunities for small-scale entrepreneurship in the Hacienda Tinihaban and neighboring communities.

 

Robin said he and his wife took out personal loans in the United States for the micro credit loans that they give out at zero to five percent interest with no collateral to wives of sugar workers to start businesses such as piggery and sari-sari (retail) stores.

 

But Micmic and Robin are not the only Abello siblings who are trying to help others. Their brother Jose Ramon, 26, a Communication Arts graduate of Ateneo de Manila University, teaches at their school, while another brother, Jay, 35, who is into the television and film industry, has also held photo exhibits to raise funds for scholarships.

By Eldie Aguirre
Mindanao Bureau
Last updated 00:35am (Mla time) 06/27/2007

DIGOS CITY, Philippines — Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent Orlando Dinoy on Tuesday said he fears for his safety after Bansalan, Davao del Sur Mayor Peter Melchor Arches allegedly harassed him on Monday.

 

Dinoy, 28, a resident of Bansalan, said he was covering the indignation rally against terrorism held in the town when Arches approached him and confronted him on reports coming out in the media about the supposed cheating and vote-buying in the town during the May 14 elections.

 

The correspondent said Arches accused him of feeding the information to other journalists.

 

“Why are you accusing me of such when I was not even involved in the campaign?” Dinoy said in his defense.

 

But Arches, he said, was fuming mad and raised his hand as if to box him.

 

He said he ran away but Arches chased him until they caught the attention of people, including a television news crew of the local ABS-CBN station.

 

Dinoy said Arches only stopped chasing him when he noticed the TV camera.

 

“But he [Arches] told me not to show up during his oath-taking or he will beat me up,” Dinoy said.

 

Senior Inspector Sherwin Butil, Bansalan police chief, said he saw Arches and Dinoy during the rally and that the two were “like playing.”

 

“I only came to know about the alleged harassment when I got to the police station,” he said.

 

Butil said he will invite Arches later “because they are still busy preparing for their oath-taking.”

 

Arches, who is winding up his third term, was elected vice mayor during the elections.

 

The Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net, tried but failed to contact Arches.

 

Bansalan Vice Mayor Edwin Reyes said the mayor does not carry a mobile phone or have any contact number.

 

“I don’t know where he is at the moment,” he said.

 

Dinoy, who started working for the Inquirer on May 14, said he would press charges against Arches.

 

He said the filing of charges might deter Arches from further harassing him.

 

As a correspondent for the Inquirer, Dinoy said he could not avoid covering the municipal hall, where Arches holds office.

Iloilo City mayor stops water pipe repair diggings

By David Israel Sinay
Inquirer
Last updated 06:43pm (Mla time) 06/26/2007

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — Mayor Jerry Treñas stopped the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) from further digging up streets to fix water pipes after the utility allegedly failed to restore the streets and pavements it had dug up.

 

“The MIWD is barred from proceeding with its project” unless it restores the streets and pavements to their original state and fixes the damage it caused to city roads, Treñas said on Tuesday.

 

The main water pipelines of MIWD are buried one meter in the ground. It is currently rehabilitating old pipes and replacing unserviceable ones.

 

Treñas lamented the damage MIWD’s excavations wrought on the city’s road network.

 

The excavations, he noted, are not only eyesores but obstruct the flow of traffic and are dangerous to motorists and pedestrians.

 

Treñas said the city government spent millions of pesos to rehabilitate the city’s road network in the six years he has served as mayor and he would no longer allow the MIWD to continue destroying the roads.

 

MIWD interim general manager Edwin Reyes, however, said road restoration is the responsibility of the City Engineer’s Office (CEO). He said that under Ordinance No. 291, which the city government approved in 1982, applicants for new service connections are required to deposit an amount at the City Treasurer’s Office equivalent to the damage to be incurred during excavation.

 

Should the water concessionaire fix the damage to any road or public infrastructure, a reimbursement of the deposit at the CTO could be made.

 

He cited a provision in Ordinance 291 that said that in case of failure by the concessionaire to restore the damage, the CEO “shall undertake the work chargeable to the deposit of the applicant.”

 

On March 22, 2006, the City Council made an adjustment for the schedule of payment for the restoration and excavation permit fee ranging from P830 per square meter for macadam pavement to P1,688.75 per square meter for concrete pavement — from the previous P50 per square meter for macadam pavement to P250 for concrete pavement.

 

The City Council made the necessary amendments on the fees because “most of the excavated roads were left unrestored to its original form due to the low restoration fee but higher construction costs…those restoration fess 20 years ago are no longer applicable in today’s prices of materials and labor cost.”

 

“It should be the CEO that should restore the roads,” Reyes said but he claimed that the MIWD assumed the responsibility of restoring roads where there were excavation works.

 

“What happened to the payment? Will the city government reimburse us, especially now that they have increased the restoration and excavation permit fee [or] will that make up as earnings of the city?…” he added.

 

MIWD has an ongoing P207-million rehabilitation project that includes replacement of old and damaged pipelines. It is expected to end in July.

Benguet officials clash over P33M in infrastructure projects

By Delmar Cariño
Inquirer
Last updated 00:34am (Mla time) 06/27/2007

LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET — Debate marked the provincial board’s last session here over a list of infrastructure projects worth P33 million which some officials claimed was a case of midnight appropriation.

 

The clash on Monday over a provincial development council resolution that endorsed the projects took close to three hours to settle amid observations that the measure actually brought Governor Borromeo Melchor and Mayor Nestor Fongwan onto a collision course.

 

Fongwan, who beat Melchor in the May 14 gubernatorial contest, will assume office on June 30.

 

The governor’s office finalized the list of 135 projects that had been endorsed by the provincial development council (PDC) to the provincial board for approval.

 

Melchor heads the five-member council with Fongwan as member representing the province’s mayors.

 

Fongwan did not sign the PDC resolution, saying the budget for the projects in the list did not “operationalize” the approved town and barangay (village) development plans.

 

In his letter to the PDC, Fongwan said “some concerned sectors and key personnel of the provincial government were allegedly not consulted for comments on the fund proposals for the projects.”

 

Board Member Lizo Agpas, committee chairman on appropriations, said the formulation of the projects and the PDC resolution complied with existing regulations.

 

He said Fongwan’s observations were merely “hearsay” and called for the provincial board to vote on the PDC resolution since the projects had been properly studied and meant to develop the villages.

 

But Board Members Aloysius Kato and Johnny Uy objected to the motion calling for a vote on the PDC resolution since it appeared that the measure was being unusually fast tracked.

 

“The P33 million is a midnight appropriation,” Kato later told reporters.

 

Kato and Uy urged the provincial board to defer action on the measure and leave its fate to the incoming set of board members.